Vodafone today showed there is no let-up in the financial woes in southern Europe as it wrote off £5.9 billion on the value of its businesses in Spain and Italy, tipping the mobiles giant into a half-year loss of £492 million.

This is just the latest huge impairment taken by Vodafone, which has had to write off an astonishing £59.1 billion on a range of businesses since 2006, starting with a £23.5 billion hit on the acquisition of Germany’s Mannesmann.

Chief financial officer Andy Halford said he had to make these write-offs because of economic conditions in these countries and falling interest rates, which depress valuations. “The accounting rules require that we look at each half year at the value of the various assets we hold,” said Halford, pointing out these are “non-cash” impairments mostly relating to acquisitions which were made at the height of the telecoms bubble a decade ago. Vodafone said since chief executive Vittorio Colao took over in 2008, the group will have returned £33.5 billion to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks by next year while writing off £24 billion.

Colao said a 7% hike in the half-year dividend and another special payout from its stake in US carrier Verizon Wireless showed Vodafone remained “very good” for shareholders.

Half-year sales slipped 0.4% to £21.78 billion but revenues fell faster in the second quarter, with southern Europe taking a big hit and even the UK struggling. The shares fell 4.5%.